Cookbook: Second Pages

My first solo cookbook is becoming more and more real as we inch closer to the publication date. The next step in the production process is called second pages. Remember first pages? During second pages, the publisher prints and sends me a revised version of the book (based on the changes made from first pages). I have a couple of weeks to review and mark up the pages before I must mail them back.

Like with first pages, I’m working on cutting lines to make some recipes fit on one page (the yellow highlight you can see in the photo above means that text is too long), adding kitchen tips and other content where I can, and triple-checking that the written serving instructions match the food in the photographs. In other words, I am doing my best to polish the book until it shines. Now that most major edits have been made, I am also verifying every single ingredient measurement in every single recipe. My cookbook lists ingredients in both cups/Tbsp/tsp as well as metric measurements like grams, ml, and cm. To make absolutely sure that the conversions are all accurate, I am compiling a nerdy spreadsheet with each ingredient called for in the book and its corresponding metric amounts. This process takes forever, but it’s well worth doing.

After second pages comes third pages, and then the book goes to the printer! We’re so close!